March 28

Note: This column was originally written for BrattonOnLine, April 12, 2017. It is reprinted here to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same in five years. Pre-Covid conditions.

University Growth, Mountain Bikes, & Rent Control, Oh My!

Question: How Do You Spell Growth?

When will the city begin exercising its negotiating powers in confronting university student growth? Eighteen thousand students and growing (now 19,500!), and no new bed space. Singles, doubles, triples and quads with a five-day meal plan now range in price from $1,468 (quad) (now 1,791) to $1,967 (now 2,367). This means, if four students live in a “Quad,” the cheapest available dorm, they would collectively pay a total between $5,872-7,868. (But in 2022 these four students would collectively pay between $7,164-$9,468). They used to be able to score a five-bedroom house with a yard near the ocean for less than that, but there aren’t any left because guess who is driving up the rents in Santa Cruz? Of course, the real estate folks are lovin’ it since the norm that’s resulted is to place ever larger numbers of students into single family homes and charge them per head. It ends up being a bargain for students after 1-2 years of high dorm prices. The result is that families are on the edge of extinction in many neighborhoods.

Eco-Hotspots and Mountain Bikes

I went walking this week up Chinquapin Road, past the campus fire station and the UCSC Crown-Merrill apartments, the asphalt soon gives way to an upper campus dirt trail. I was invited for a hike by my old friend, emeritus physics professor, Peter Scott. His two-foot long flowing white beard makes him appear like Moses, and he walks briskly in leading me toward his Promised Land—the “ecological hot spot” that is upper campus. At eighty-plus years old I wondered how he so easily outpaced me on this hike. I follow him to a trailhead that he says is “new” to his eyes. 

“Where does it go?” I ask. 

“Not sure, but let’s just go and see where it takes us,” he says with a joyful grin. 

Peter’s taking me out to look for signs of erosion, tire tracks that have formed new gullies and will lead to future seasonal streams. The tire markings are abundant in this area of campus. There are now herds of mountain bikers among the deer, fox, and mountain lion populations. Many of the spandex-clad riders perhaps do not realize they are traversing an area that the Smithsonian Institute has made a place for on their ecological hot spot map. It is also an area that’s said to have been one of Henry Cowell’s favorite places to ride his horse back in the late 1800’s.

Later, I’m still trailing Peter as we emerge from our forest walk. He wanders toward McLaughlin Drive and I follow. We turn right and walk up Science Hill. Peter marvels at how many students are waiting at both bus stops between Baskin Engineering and the Science Library. There are literally hundreds. It is 5:15pm after all, and a great human tide is about to descend off campus. But as we walk, there are both white campus shuttles and Metro buses passing up the hundreds who are waiting. 

Parking on the Hill

I parked my Nissan Leaf in the only campus parking garage (a past transportation struggle itself that I shall take up in a future column). The light blue Leaf sits snuggly in the electric vehicle area. But, what’s this? We arrive to a $50 ticket adorning my windshield. But, I had a parking pass displayed? The infraction seems to be that I did not “plug in” to their dollar-an-hour outlet, and that does not include the five bucks I already paid to park. Who knew plugging in was mandatory? As we made our way down the east side of campus there were two lines of cars gridlocked at the intersection of Coolidge and Hagar, a place where the cows gather to look out across grass and asphalt onto the subsidized faculty housing. No one was moving, except the cows. I wondered in that moment what might ensue when we get to the Long-Range Development Plan’s (LRDP) max of 19,500 students, which leads me to the letter Supervisor Ryan Coonerty submitted to the SC Board of Supes last week. Supervisor Coonerty, seeking to catch up to a fast-moving UCSC train (wreck?) wrote to his colleagues this week subtly observing that the university has become a community behemoth. He points out in the letter that UCSC has now begun the planning process for preparing the next LRDP. It will set limits on future campus growth, and identify the facilities and policies to support this growth. He sought to be measured, and arguably pulled some of his punches. He writes: UCSC provides many benefits to our community, particularly in the cultural and economic areas. On the other hand, UCSC also has impacts in terms of housing, traffic, and water demand. The County has a legitimate and significant interest in the University’s plans and policies for the UCSC campus.

Coonerty makes three points in his letter, his second being a rather gentle and gracious and important “ask” of the university. He writes: University growth in the next LRDP should be no greater than 19,500 students as allowed under the current LRDP and, if additional student growth is approved, it will be minimal and all the students, faculty, and staff resulting from this growth should be housed on campus… Translation: Could they please house their students on campus if they just happen to go over the 19,500 mark, which they are damn near right now. (Update: all of this ended in yet another law suit filed by the city of Santa Cruz over the issue of housing scarcity.

Gown Now Hiding Town?

If there are already 18,763 students (Now 19,500 on March 28, 2022) on campus, and an estimated 650 coming next year…help me do the math. That’s a whopping 19,413! One might say that UCSC has reached the limit, no? Does this mean no more students housed in town after next year (okay, 87 more) as agreed to in the LRDP? Unfortunately, new bed space on campus has been talked about, but I am not aware of any being built. What this figure means for the town of Santa Cruz is huge (Trump voiceover here)! In terms of housing, homeless services, water, Metro Bus service, police calls-for-service, and the competition for jobs we are fast approaching a social, economic, and political day of reckoning. Does the “Gown” now envelop the “Town,” and “the Hill” begin where Highway 17 meets Ocean Street? Or will the city council, and Santa Cruz county board of supervisors representing the people of Santa Cruz, start to push back on our UC guest…just a little bit?! (Update: they pushed back with the hiring of a so-called “Liaison” position to work with parties—administrators, elected officials, and the public–in Sacramento and Santa Cruz. That position was recently axed from both the city and county budgets and a law suit replaced it.

Rent Control, Mountain View-style 

The vice-mayor of Mountain View, Lenny Siegel made his way down the coast last Saturday to promote his city’s recently passed rent control initiative. He said it tries to bring some sanity to the housing market by rolling back rents to their October 2015 rates. Siegel, speaking before a crowd of some thirty housing, rent control and wage activists (there was also one city planner present), said he was elected in 2014 and immediately called for a rent control ordinance. But when the city council majority refused to place one on the ballot, activists huddled around him and did it the old-fashioned way. They organized a petition signature campaign and achieved a majority vote in November of 2016, while also electing two more supportive councilmembers. Of course, the California Apartment Association immediately sued, but lost the first-round in court last week according to Siegel. The peninsula vice-mayor contended that there may be a second judicial round over the issue of a rent rollback to 2015, as the new ordinance mandates, but he was holding his breath and clearly relishing their first legal win in the case. Although it was a significant victory for the renters of Mountain View, Siegel sees “rent control as a tool to diminish displacement, not as a long-term solution.” And it doesn’t affect new construction, “only units built before 1995,” he assured the audience. He also said, in order to avoid a rash of arbitrary evictions, any rent control initiative must include a just-cause eviction clause as well. Siegel said that 60% of households in his town were renters, as compared to 56% in Santa Cruz.

Siegel’s Vision

Since it was a session on rent control and transportation, Siegel talked about working with Google and how they have expanded the options for getting to work and school for many Mountain View residents. These include increased Caltrain service, bicycle amenities, greater skateboard access to transit (no joke!), lots more buses, and what he hopes the future might look like, Personal Rapid Transit (PRT). He said he’s been pushing Google, or “working with them” on building the “North Bayshore” project, some 10,000 units that will have a .50 required parking space for each bedroom, meaning it will be very transit-oriented. (Siegel supports a .75 parking space per unit because that would be more family-oriented he said.) He’s also working on getting 15%-20% of all of these units HUD—Housing and Urban Development—affordable. He says there exists “entitled” development, and development with the help of “legislative acts.” If the city council passes legislation to assist the developer then the city can demand more from that developer, he said, “and get the city attorney to make that really clear to the council.” Siegel also touted some current legislation, Assembly Bill 1505, that would restore local authority in cities ability to demand a certain percentage of new rental units be built as “affordable.” Heads in the room nodded approvingly over this new affordable housing-friendly bill.

Answer to above question: The UC Regents. Why? Because they are directing more students to Santa Cruz without providing the resources to adequately house and educate them, and that spells G-R-O-W-T-H.

“The goal of a health care system should be to keep people well, not to make stockholders rich.” (Tweeted April 8, 2017)

Fifty-five people attended a face-off this past Sunday afternoon between “Our Downtown, Our Future’s” Lira Filippini and John Hall, vs. the Library-Garage project represented by Cynthia Matthews and Martin Gomez. Guess who prevailed?!